Remembering K.S. Ranjitsinhji on his 150th birth anniversary. Excerpt from Indra Vikram Singh’s book ‘Don’s Century’

On the birth anniversary of K.S. Ranjitsinhji, 10^th September 2022, we remember one of the greats of batting who went on to become Maharaja Jam Saheb of Nawanagar. Reproduced below is an excerpt from Indra Vikram Singh’s book ‘Don’s Century’:

Batting, having already been defined by Grace, saw its next two stars descend from distant lands. If Prince Ranjitsinhji, later the Jam Saheb of Nawanagar, delighted with his artistry at the crease, the Aussie Victor Trumper provided the thrills with his panache. The very thought of Ranji conjures images of the leg-glance. He was the inventor of the shot, one that was patently his own and an early glimpse of the suppleness of wrists that characterised the batting of later Indian stalwarts Gundappa Viswanath, Mohammad Azharuddin and V.V.S. Laxman.

Ranji worked hard to hone his talent, hiring professional bowlers from Surrey while he was at Cambridge. Simon Wilde wrote in his biography Ranji A Genius Rich and Strange: “He practised with as much purpose whether he had just been out for 100 or for 0. He was a severe critic of his own game, and if he was indeed a genius it was for his infinite capacity for taking pains, not for becoming a superlative cricketer overnight. He enjoyed theorizing about the game and putting those theories into practice.”

The outcome was a batting style that was as unique as it was novel, and it perplexed the English. Cardus elucidated in Good Days (1934): “In the ‘nineties the game was absolutely English; it was even Victorian. W.G. Grace for years had stamped on cricket the English mark and the mark of the period. It was the age of simple first principles, of the stout respectability of the straight bat and the good-length balls. And then suddenly this visitation of dusky, supple legerdemain happened; a man was seen playing cricket as nobody in England could possibly have played it. The honest length ball was not met by the honest straight bat, but there was a flick of the wrist, and lo! The straight ball was charmed away to the leg-boundary. And nobody quite saw or understood how it all happened.”

All those who saw Ranji bat vouched for the fact that he had an exceptionally quick eye and could hook the fastest bowling with ease. Though he had appeared in English first-class cricket since 1893, Ranjitsinhji’s first full season was in 1895 when he made his debut for Sussex against the MCC at Lord’s. He caused an immediate impact, carving out scores of 77 and 150. From then on he captured the imagination of the public and became a very popular, even mystical, figure.

The next year at the age of 23, Ranji topped the first-class averages at 57.92, surpassing Grace’s record season aggregate by scoring 2780 runs, and equalling the great senior’s 10 hundreds. In a unique feat, Ranji hit up a century in each innings of a match on the same day. Resuming at zero not out, he notched up 100 and 125 not out for Sussex against Yorkshire at Hove. The English were reluctant to pick him in their Test side, but his huge popularity ensured that he was selected for the second match. Appropriately, Ranji became the second England batsman after Grace to score a hundred on Test debut, an unbeaten 154 against Australia at Manchester, having hit 62 in the first innings. In the process he nearly pulled off an improbable win. In the 1897 season, Ranji scored 1940 runs at an average of 45.12. He hit up his first double-century, 260 in just 250 minutes with 36 fours and a six against MCC at Lord’s, the highest by a Sussex batsman.

K.S. Ranjitsinhji (left) with W.G. Grace

Ranji never took the tedious sea journeys well. Prone to attacks of asthma, he was taken ill during the month-long voyage to Australia in 1897-98, even though he joined the team only in the south of the European Continent. He was still unwell when the first Test began in Sydney. Even so, he battled through, carving out a monumental 175, which was a record for England until R.E. Foster bettered it with 287 at the same venue six years later. Ranji’s knock enabled England to win their only Test in a series they lost 1-4. It was a productive tour for him personally, averaging over 50 in the Tests and over 60 in the first-class matches. In all he collected 1157 runs. At the end of the tour, Ranji returned to his homeland after a decade.

Having missed the English season of 1898 as a result of a long sojourn at home, Ranji’s best came at the turn of the century, even though he was not quite as slim and his feet seemed not as nimble. In 1899 he became the first to score 3000 runs in a season. He bailed out England in the first Test at Nottingham, scoring 42 and 93 not out, and holding Australia to a draw. By the end of the series he had scored 970 runs in 12 Tests at a brilliant average of 53.88. He amassed 3159 first-class runs at 63.18 per innings.

After a trip to the United States during the winter, Ranji’s 1900 season was just as brilliant. So irresistible was his form that he knocked up successive double centuries, both for Sussex - 222 against Somerset at Hove, and an unbeaten 215 versus Cambridge University at Fenners. Quite the master on rain-affected wickets, he breezed to 202 in three hours off the Middlesex bowling after a thunderstorm at Hove, the next highest by a Sussex colleague being 17. His five double centuries were a record for a season, bettered only by Bradman with six in 1930. Everton Weekes of the West Indies equalled Ranji’s five double tons exactly half a century later. The now-unstoppable Ranji logged up 3000 runs for the second successive season, this time scoring 3065 runs and topping the averages at a mind-boggling 87.57, hitting up 11 hundreds.

1901 was yet another splendid season. Again Ranji scored two double centuries in a row, once more representing his county, an unbeaten 285 against Somerset at Taunton and 204 at the expense of Lancashire at the home ground of Hove. The first was an amazing feat, not only for the fact that it was his top score and the highest-ever by a Sussex batsman, but because he was out fishing the entire previous night! For the 1901 season his tally was 2468 runs at 70.51 per innings. In three consecutive seasons, Ranjitsinhji had totalled 8692 runs at an average of 72.43 with 27 hundreds. The wizard from the orient continued to enchant and befuddle at the same time.          

He did not sail to Australia in 1901-02 and, perhaps due to the troubles in his personal life, lost form dramatically in the Tests in 1902, managing just 19 runs in four innings and never played at that level again. He still finished with a Test average of 44.96, a splendid achievement at the time. In first-class matches, though, Ranji continued to blaze away till 1904 when he again topped the 2000 mark as well as the averages - 2077 runs at 74.17.

Succession issues in Nawanagar kept Ranjitsinhji back in India, and he missed the next three seasons. He returned to England in 1908 as His Highness The Jam Sahib of Nawanagar, having being installed as ruler of the 3791 square miles, 13-gun salute princely State in circumstances so full of intrigue and danger as to render a racy novel hopelessly mundane. He played that season as well as in 1912, remarkably notching up 1000 runs each time. Ranji was seen on the cricket field one last time in 1920. Astonishingly, he played three first-class matches and, as was only to be expected, failed miserably. The fact was that his right eye had been removed five years earlier when on August 31 he had met with an accident while shooting grouse on the Yorkshire moors. This was soon after he returned from France, ending a brief and miserable stint in the army during the First World War.

Chamber of Princes 1930. Maharaja Jam Saheb Ranjitsinhji of Nawanagar is seated fourth from left. To his right is Maharaja Vijaysinhji of Rajpipla, and to his left is Maharaja Bhupindra Singh of Patiala. 

       It is quite uncanny that another Indian of princely origin and dashing batsman who was also to lead Sussex, Nawab of Pataudi junior, Mansur Ali Khan, also virtually lost vision in his right eye after a car accident on July 1, 1961 on the way back to Hove after dining out at neighbouring Brighton. The difference was that Ranji had his mishap after his cricket career was over, while Tiger Pataudi met this fate when his journey in the game had hardly begun.

It was while Ranji was recuperating, eye still bandaged, that he travelled to Beckenham, Kent, on October 26, 1915 to attend the funeral of his former England captain W.G. Grace. The curtain had come down not just on one era, but for all practical purposes, two.

Hartland summed up the impact of Ranji on the game: “The batting star of the Golden Age in England was Ranjitsinhji, with a first-class average of 56 - virtually as high as any English-qualified player has ever achieved and quite phenomenal for the time, particularly since he scored at around 50 runs an hour. Taking a qualification of ten thousand runs for all English batsmen who faced their first ball in the nineteenth century, Ranji’s first-class average is approached only by Sussex teammate Fry with 50. Test bowling did not slow Ranjitsinhji much, and the combination of his high average and scoring rate in relation to others really does mark him as out of the ordinary.”

Ranji’s first-class average of 56.37 was the highest for a full career by an England-based player until as late as 1986 when Geoff Boycott retired with a fractionally higher average of 56.84. And if one considers that Ranji’s career was all but over in 1904; his appearances thereafter were sporadic in 1908 and 1912, and farcical in 1920, his deeds are even more astounding. Upto 1904, Ranji had scored 22,402 runs at an average of 58.49 with 65 hundreds in 267 matches, really in less than a decade. That is the true reflection of his genius.

To the outside world Ranji was an exceptionally gifted prince who toiled diligently in the nets to emerge as the finest batsman of his era. Yet not many realised the inner turmoil that he undoubtedly underwent during his best years at the wicket, what with the drama of his adoption that never was, the machinations over his succession as ruler and his financial woes at the time. And he was laid low by illness for long periods. One has to marvel at the fact that he excelled at the game under these trying circumstances. Or more likely, he used them as a spur to motivate himself and to prove to those who mattered that he was fit to be king.

Yet his charm transcended all the elegant runs that he made. As Jessop wrote: “From the moment he stepped out of the pavilion he drew all eyes and held them. No one who saw him bat will ever forget it. He was the first man I ever knew who wore silk shirts, and there was something almost romantic about the very flow of his sleeves and the curve of his shoulders. He drew the crowds wherever he went, and at the height of his cricket days the shops in Brighton would empty if he passed along the street. Everyone wanted to see him.”

There was little doubt that Ranjitsinhji had transformed batting forever. As late as 1944, Pelham Warner wrote in The Book of Cricket: “With his wonderful eye and wrists, he could play back to almost any ball, however good a length, and however fast. Like Bradman, he seldom played a genuine forward stroke, for, again like Bradman he found that balls to which he could not play back he could, with his quickness of foot, get to and drive.” This ‘play back or drive’ method, however, could only be used by one with a sharp eye and quicksilver footwork, like a Ranji or a Bradman. English batsmen attempted to copy it with disastrous results. It takes someone extraordinary to play in an extraordinary way. Ranji scored more profusely than anyone had done before, just as Bradman was to do three decades later.

(Author Indra Vikram Singh can be contacted on email singh_iv@hotmail.com).

Don’s Century 

Published in India by Sporting Links 

ISBN 978-81-901668-5-0 

Fully illustrated 

Paperback French Fold 

11 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches 

Weight 480 grams 

188 pages 

Available on Amazon at an attractive price: https://www.amazon.in/dp/8190166859

Indra Vikram Singh's other books available on Amazon: 

https://www.amazon.in/s?k=Indra+Vikram+Singh&i=stripbooks&rh=p_6%3AA3HSV0N9AV7NOK&dc&qid=1602408830&rnid=1318474031&ref=sr_nr_p_6_1 

The 1930-31 series, the only time Don Bradman and George Headley came face-to-face in the Test arena. Excerpt from Indra Vikram Singh’s book ‘Don’s Century’

The West Indies toured Australia in the 1930-31 season, and for the only time in his Test career Bradman came face to face with George Headley, who came to be known as the black Bradman. 

Curiously, neither did well in the first two Tests, which Australia won easily. In the opening Test at Adelaide, Bradman needed 26 runs to complete 1000 runs in 1930. He was out for 4. On 1^st January 1931 he scored 25 in the second Test at Sydney, but it was a day too late.

The two maestros reserved their best for the third encounter at the Exhibition Ground in Brisbane. After Jackson had been dismissed for a duck, Ponsford and Bradman put on 229 for the second wicket. Both registered hundreds, and even after Ponsford departed for 109, there was no respite for the tourists. Kippax allied with Bradman in another double century stand. The partnership was worth 203 when Kippax left for 84. Bradman had gone past 200. At close of play on Day One, Australia were 428 for three, with Bradman on 223. He was out next morning without adding to his score, having been at the crease for less than five hours and hit 24 boundaries. The eventual total was 558. Headley’s riposte was an unbeaten 102, as the West Indies were bowled out for 193. Following on, they crumbled for 148, unable to cope with Clarrie Grimmett’s leg-spin.

The disasters continued for the visitors at Melbourne. They were shot out for 99 in 50 overs with Bert Ironmonger grabbing seven for 23 in 20 overs. This time Bradman was partnered by Woodfull in a second-wicket stand of 156. The Don scored 152 at almost at a-run-a-minute, and Woodfull decided that 328 runs were enough, declaring with eight wickets down. Indeed they were, as the West Indies were skittled out on that very second day for 107, with Ironmonger completing a match haul of eleven for 79.

The West Indies, in their maiden series against Australia, were completely outclassed in the first four Tests, annihilated by 10 wickets to begin with, and then by an innings thrice in a row, the run deficits still being 172, 217 and 122. Quite clearly, the only real contests in Test cricket still were those for the Ashes.

Having said that, the men from the sunny Caribbean islands fought back in the final Test, with Headley scoring a fine century, as also did opener Frank Martin. With the weather playing a part and the West Indies skipper Jackie Grant making opportune declarations. Australia were beaten by 30 runs. Bradman registered his first duck in Test cricket.

Ponsford 467 runs (average 77.83) and Bradman 447 runs (average 74.50) were the outstanding batsmen in the series. No one else averaged fifty.

The series, however, ended on a poignant note as well. The brilliant young Archie Jackson, who was rated as high as Bradman - some said he was even more talented - appeared for Australia for the last time in the fourth Test. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis, which in those days, and for decades after, was a deadly disease. At just 19 years of age and having had the opportunity to play only eight times at the highest level, destiny had dealt him a cruel blow.

(Author Indra Vikram Singh can be contacted on email singh_iv@hotmail.com).

Don’s Century 

Published in India by Sporting Links 

ISBN 978-81-901668-5-0 

Fully illustrated 

Paperback French Fold 

11 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches 

Weight 480 grams 

188 pages 

Available on Amazon at an attractive price: https://www.amazon.in/dp/8190166859

 Indra Vikram Singh's other books available on Amazon: 

https://www.amazon.in/s?k=Indra+Vikram+Singh&i=stripbooks&rh=p_6%3AA3HSV0N9AV7NOK&dc&qid=1602408830&rnid=1318474031&ref=sr_nr_p_6_1 

How Don Bradman’s magnificent batting brought solace to the people during the Great Depression

Don Bradman’s superb batting diverted the minds of the people during the dark days of the Great Depression

While Bradman was making his entry into the record books, a significant event that was to cast its shadow for more than a decade, was occurring on the other side of the globe. The United States of America, having experienced great prosperity in the 1920s, post-World War I, saw soaring exports and booming stock markets, but much of the shares bought with borrowed money. This bubble that had consequently been created, burst on October 29, 1929, a day that came to be known as ‘Black Tuesday’.

The stock market on Wall Street collapsed. Countless fortunes were lost. The ripple effect engulfed the entire United States, and then the world. Banks failed, businesses and factories closed, and international trade came to a virtual standstill. The markets kept plunging and bottomed out only after three years. It is believed that 30 million people lost their jobs, half of them in the United States.

Australia too took a big hit as nearly one-third of the people found themselves out of employment, and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) declined by as much as 25 percent. The Great Depression had set in. It was a period of great economic hardship that lasted more than a decade.

It was exactly during this time leading to the Second World War that Bradman regaled the crowds with his magical 2 lb 2 oz bat. People thronged to the grounds to watch his run-sprees, as much as to forget their own miseries. His deeds brought solace to the multitude that watched, heard or read about his exploits.

In Australia there was the added glee of giving a hiding to the imperial masters, who protected the interests of their own merchants at the cost of the toiling masses. The impact of Bradman’s peerless accomplishments went far beyond providing entertainment and transmitting the joys of sporting excellence. His record-breaking feats helped lift, at least temporarily, the gloom in people’s lives, and enabled them to escape into a less depressing world.

When there was darkness all around, Bradman was one bright light that offered hope and instilled the courage to battle on. For many, Bradman became the very reason and purpose for their existence. Someone who has come close to replicating the joy that Bradman spread has been India’s Sachin Tendulkar. There has not been a more loved character in recent times than Tendulkar, nor one who people want to see succeed as much as he.

When it was later pointed out to The Don that he had helped so many cope with the pain of the Great Depression, he merely replied, “I don’t know. I was too busy playing cricket.” Indeed he was, and so focussed was he on the field that the only things that mattered to him were runs on the board and victory for his team.

(Author Indra Vikram Singh can be contacted on email singh_iv@hotmail.com).

Don’s Century 

Published in India by Sporting Links 

ISBN 978-81-901668-5-0 

Fully illustrated 

Paperback French Fold 

11 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches 

Weight 480 grams 

188 pages 

Available on Amazon at an attractive price: https://www.amazon.in/dp/8190166859

Indra Vikram Singh's other books available on Amazon: 

https://www.amazon.in/s?k=Indra+Vikram+Singh&i=stripbooks&rh=p_6%3AA3HSV0N9AV7NOK&dc&qid=1602408830&rnid=1318474031&ref=sr_nr_p_6_1 

Don Bradman’s superb double century in the final Test clinched the Ashes 1930 series for Australia. Excerpt from Indra Vikram Singh's book 'Don's Century'

Don Bradman acknowledging the cheers of the crowd on reaching his double century in the final Test at The Oval in 1930. With the series tied 1-1, Bradman’s superb 232 turned this Test in Australia’s favour, a decisive role in regaining the Ashes

With the 1930 series tied 1-1 before the fifth Test at The Oval, it was a game without limit. Bob Wyatt was England captain in place of Percy Chapman, who in the face of Don Bradman’s onslaught was now viewed as prodigal, if not primeval. Sutcliffe dropped anchor, scoring 161 and England logged up a total of 405 in this battle of nerves.

The old firm of Bill Woodfull and Bill Ponsford raised 159 upfront, and it was the latter who was dismissed first after scoring a fine 110. Bradman joined the stonewaller Woodfull, who left after tallying a patient 54 in three-and-a-quarter hours. Bradman was unbeaten with 27 at stumps, with Alan Kippax keeping him company.

Rain now played a part, but Bradman was steadfast on the tricky wet track. Douglas Jardine was a bystander in the series but he reckoned that he saw flaws in Bradman’s game against fast bowling on the damp wicket. At the end of the curtailed third day, Bradman was nevertheless still at the crease with 130 runs to his name, with Archie Jackson by his side. The only wicket lost was that of Kippax, and Australia were just two runs behind.

Bradman stroked his way to a double century and with Jackson put on 243 for the fourth wicket before the talented youngster fell for 73. Stan McCabe helped Bradman add another 64 runs. Australia were 165 ahead when Bradman finally edged Harold Larwood into George Duckworth’s gloves. His 232 had come off 417 balls in 438 minutes, aided by 16 boundaries.

It was a match-winning knock played at a crucial juncture in testing conditions, and it put Australia in the driver’s seat in their quest to reclaim the Ashes. If his breathtaking 254 at Lord’s was instrumental in levelling the series, Bradman’s dominant 232 at London’s other ground clinched it for Australia. McCabe, Alan Fairfax and Bert Oldfield kept up the momentum, the lead mounting to 290. Ian Peebles was rewarded for his 71 overs of toil with a haul of six for 204.

Fairfax bowled Jack Hobbs before stumps and England were pushed against the wall at 24 for one. Rain washed out the fifth day’s play. When the game resumed, England could not forge any partnership of real significance. Percival Hornibrook captured seven of the eight wickets that fell to bowlers on the final day. Wally Hammond was last out for 60 as England folded up for 251. The significance could not have been lost on anyone as the mantle of the best batsman in the world passed on to the superstar from Down Under, Don Bradman.

It was a momentous tour. Having played a pivotal role in winning the Ashes, Bradman scored an unprecedented 974 runs in the series, still unequalled to this day, at an average of 139.14. He got all these runs at 40 an hour without hitting a six. Rarely did Bradman loft the ball. Some felt that this aggregate was the equivalent of Sydney Barnes’ feat of 49 wickets in four Tests against South Africa in 1913-14, but against better opposition. No other batsman from either side got even half of Bradman’s tally, nor even more than one hundred.

Mammoth scores kept coming repeatedly from his willow like giant waves slapping the shore – a century, two double centuries and a triple century. The double hundreds decided the series. Without doubt the English would need to introspect deeply. C.B. Fry, himself a man of many parts and incredibly talented, was enchanted with Bradman’s display: “I wish I could have used my bat like Don. He is a gem of a batsman. I just love his finished technique and inevitable surety.”

As much as the runs that he scored, Bradman filled the counties’ coffers as never before. Jon Stock related a tale, perhaps apocryphal, in The Week: “Don was the bane of every bowler’s life, but he was also a commercial opportunity. Dai Davies, a Glamorgan player, recalls how he once came close to bowling Bradman in 1930. He was flabbergasted when instead of encouraging him, his captain Maurice Turnbull told Davies that his services wouldn’t be required that day. ‘But I’ll get him out the next over,’ Davies pleaded. ‘That’s what we don’t want,’ Turnbull replied. ‘Can’t you see, we’ve got to keep him in for Monday (the August bank holiday)?’ Glamorgan made a small profit at the end of that year thanks entirely to that game’s proceeds.”

By the final Test, his ninth, Bradman had reached an average of 100, and had as many as six three-figure knocks. His aggregate now stood at 1442 runs, the average 103. In all first-class matches during that tour of 1930, Bradman hit up 2960 runs, the most any visiting batsman has done, and notched up 10 hundreds. He topped the averages among all batsmen during that season at 98.66, which he did on all his tours to England.

If anybody had lingering doubts about Bradman’s ability to cope with English conditions, they had been dispelled in the most vehement manner possible. From now on batting had only one don, perhaps forever. That Wisden selected Bradman as one of its cricketers of the year in its 1931 edition is only stating the obvious. A most telling comment came from the great allrounder Wilfred Rhodes, a shrewd judge of the game, and not one to shower praise lightly: “I bowled against all the best from 1900 to 1930 - Hobbs, Trumper, Grace and Ranji among them and many, many more - but Bradman was the greatest.”          

Ian Peebles, who bowled to Bradman during this series, wrote in the World of Cricket: “It was not until the series got underway that the cricket world gradually realised that this young man Bradman had inaugurated a new era and somewhat reinterpreted the old adage that ‘bowlers win matches’. Never before had an individual batsman so consistently given bowlers the opportunity of winning matches by the speed and extent of his scoring.”

Financially, the tour brought Bradman a bonanza. In addition to the ₤ 600 paid by The Board of Control for the six-month effort, which was easily double an average annual wage at the time, and the reward of ₤ 1000 bestowed on him by Arthur Whitelaw, was the contract for his first book Don Bradman’s Book of Cricket and its serialisation in the press. Bradman’s earnings came to a whopping ₤ 5000.

Don Bradman was now a folk hero in Australia, and he began receiving several offers for commercial endorsements. ‘Bradmania’ had besieged the minds of his countrymen. Whenever word spread that Bradman was at Mick Simmons, huge crowds would congregate outside. It was not long before a musical tribute was paid to him. ‘Our Don Bradman’ was an affectionate tune that became popular in the 1930s. Described as a ‘snappy fox trot song’, it hailed ‘Australia’s batting phenomenon’. Deft pianist that he was, Bradman himself composed a song ‘Every Day is a Rainbow Day for Me’.

(Author Indra Vikram Singh can be contacted on email singh_iv@hotmail.com).

Don’s Century 

Published in India by Sporting Links 

ISBN 978-81-901668-5-0 

Fully illustrated 

Paperback French Fold 

11 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches 

Weight 480 grams 

188 pages 

Available on Amazon at an attractive price: https://www.amazon.in/dp/8190166859

Indra Vikram Singh's other books available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.in/s?k=Indra+Vikram+Singh&i=stripbooks&rh=p_6%3AA3HSV0N9AV7NOK&dc&qid=1602408830&rnid=1318474031&ref=sr_nr_p_6_1 

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Don Bradman’s astounding record triple century in the Leeds Test of 1930. Excerpt from Indra Vikram Singh's book 'Don's Century'

 

Young Don Bradman in action during the course of his matchless triple hundred in a day in the Leeds Test of 1930. On the second day he broke Andy Sandham’s Test record by hitting up 334 runs, and became the first to notch up the highest scores in first-class as well as Test cricket. Brian Lara emulated him 64 years later. 

 

It was Maurice Tate again who should have bowled Don Bradman with a vicious in-cutter for a duck at Headingley. “My first ball missed the off-peg by a coat of varnish,” rued Tate. Wicketkeeper George Duckworth threw up his hands in jubilation only to let the ball through for four byes. Bradman had walked in to face the twelfth ball of the match after Archie Jackson had been dismissed cheaply. 

Unfazed by the close shave, Bradman went on the attack. He reached his fifty in 49 minutes, out of a total of 61. His partner Woodfull was, for the most part, a bystander. The Australian hundred was up in 80 minutes, with Bradman on 81 and Woodfull 17. The skipper did the sensible thing, taking singles and giving his young star most of the strike. Bradman pulled Larwood to reach his hundred, fourth in consecutive Test matches. 

At lunch he was on 105, with Woodfull having advanced to 29, out of a total of 136. Only two others had hit up a century before lunch on the first day of a Test, both Australians against England, Victor Trumper at Manchester in 1902, and Charlie Macartney, who like Bradman had Woodfull as partner on the same ground at Leeds four summers earlier in 1926. Pakistan’s Majid Khan joined the club in 1976-77 against New Zealand at Karachi. Four decades later, Australian David Warner achieved the feat against Pakistan in 2016, followed by India’s Shikhar Dhawan off the Afghan attack in 2018.

Hundred before lunch. Bradman coming in for lunch with a century already under his belt on the first day, emulating the feats of compatriots Victor Trumper and Charlie Macartney. Pakistan’s Majid Khan, Australian David Warner and India’s Shikhar Dhawan joined the club later.

Woodfull departed at 194, having reached a customary sedate 50. Bradman rattled up the fastest Test double century in 214 minutes, quicker than Trumper’s 226-minute effort against South Africa at Adelaide in 1910-11, and his own 234 minutes of brilliance in the previous Test at Lord’s. It is reckoned that Bradman played uppishly only twice, when he was on 141 and 202, eluding mid-on, but was otherwise in total command. By tea he was on 220, his partner now being Alan Kippax. 

Bradman got his first chance of the series after 15 hours of batting when the weary Duckworth dropped a difficult one off George Geary. He was then on 273. With Kippax he put on 229 for the third wicket. Bradman reached his triple century in 336 minutes. It is still the second-quickest ever recorded in terms of time after Hammond who clocked up the coveted figure in 288 minutes against New Zealand at Auckland in 1932-33. At stumps The Don was unbeaten on 309, the only instance in Test history of a batsman scoring three hundred runs in a day. Australia were 458 for three. During the course of this exciting day, Bradman passed 1000 runs in only the 13th innings of his 7th Test match. 

That evening Bradman noted: “My feet are awfully tired, but I could have gone on if it hadn’t been the close. I am happy to have beaten the record (Englishman R.E. Foster’s 287 in Ashes contests), but happier still to think Australia is in such a good position. I believe I have been credited with the intention of going on to score 500! Nothing so ambitious crossed my mind. I consider I was lucky to strike my best form on an ideal batsman’s wicket.” 

On the second morning Bradman surpassed Andy Sandham’s Test record of 325 achieved against the West Indies at Kingston the previous winter. He was finally taken by Duckworth, Tate claiming his wicket for the fifth and last time. It was obviously a tremendous innings lasting 383 minutes, his 334 off 448 balls studded with 46 boundaries, and containing 6 threes, 26 twos and 80 singles. The next highest was Kippax’s 77. Bradman was sixth out at 508; Australia folded up for 566. 

A delighted admirer, England-based Australian businessman Arthur Whitelaw, presented Bradman a purse of ₤ 1000 for the record innings. It was a princely sum considering that each of the Australian players received ₤ 600 for the entire tour. That Bradman did not share his bounty, or any part of it, with his teammates caused considerable heartburn. The new record-holder, prudent as ever in matters financial, wasted no time in depositing the windfall in his future wife Jessie’s account in the Commonwealth Bank, where she was employed. 

“It was an innings that will be remembered not only for its magnitude but for its magnificence,” wrote former England captain Pelham Warner. “It is impossible,” he continued, “to imagine greater batting. It was glorious. To call him a run-getting machine, as he has been called, is a poor compliment that rather implies that the runs are ground out with a roar and a clash and a clatter, while as a fact he makes his runs easily, smoothly and naturally with the mark of genius throughout. He is never flurried or in any apparent hurry, and yet runs come from his bat almost as fast as bullets from a machine gun; there has never been a batsman who in match after match had claimed such a huge proportion of the runs scored.” Ominously and, as it turned out, ironically, Warner concluded, “We must if possible, evolve a new type of bowler and develop fresh ideas on strategy and tactics to curb his almost uncanny skill.” 

He may have mesmerised the onlookers, but Bradman himself was not entirely impressed by his own feat. In his autobiography Farewell to Cricket that he wrote after retirement, Bradman reflected: “Whilst admitting that my form was excellent, I have always maintained it was not such a good innings as the previous one at Lord’s. It was made perhaps at a slightly faster rate and included a century before lunch on the first day after Jackson had been dismissed for 1, but there were blemishes in strokeplay of which I was well aware.” Clearly, the perfectionist that he was, Bradman was not satisfied with his record-shattering effort. That is what made him the champion that he was. 

A boy of fourteen from Pudsey, Yorkshire, was also at Headingley on that pulsating opening day. His name: Len Hutton. He already hero-worshipped Bradman and as he wrote 58 years later in The Observer, paying tribute to The Don on his 80th birthday, “Bradman made his way to the wicket very slowly on that sunny morning.” Ruminating on the day’s play, Hutton observed: “This was batsmanship of a class never seen before; a ruthless, systematic destruction of an English attack that included Larwood, Tate, Geary, Dick Tyldesley and Hammond. Even when he made an error in that astonishing 334 at Leeds he was quick enough to profit. He charged at one of Tyldesley’s slow leg-breaks, slipped when well out of his crease and just as Duckworth was waiting to collect the ball to effect the stumping, Bradman somehow got his bat to the ball as he fell, cut it down to third man and, instead of being out, got away with a single.” That is called a stroke of genius. 

In his book Fifty Years in Cricket, Hutton wrote: “The speed of Bradman’s footwork and the ease with which he found, and even created gaps in the field were a revelation, and an abiding memory. He put the ball exactly where he wanted it to go – and that is no exaggeration. England’s captain Percy Chapman admittedly did not have the fleetest of fielding sides, but no matter how he tried, he could not plug the holes. They appeared everywhere, and no sooner was one filled than another was exposed. For example, if third-man was placed square, Don would steer between slip and gully. If Chapman tried to move third-man finer, Don would thump the move with a fierce square cut, a stroke he played to perfection. And so it went on. Bradman aimed for the maximum result from every stroke, and he saw no advantage in hitting hard and straight to a fielder.” That evening the wide-eyed Hutton rushed back to Pudsey, found two bowlers to practise against and tried to emulate Bradman till the midsummer light faded completely. 

The doyen of writers, Neville Cardus, was in the press box, and he wrote later in his book Play Resumed with Cardus: “At Leeds Bradman announced his rights to mastership in a few swift moments. He made 72 runs in his first hour at the wicket, giving to us every bit of cricket excepting the leg-glance. Every fine point of batsmanship was to be admired; strokes powerful and swift and accurate and handsome; variety of craft controlled with singleness of mind and purpose. Bradman was as determined to take no risks, as was to hit boundaries from every ball the least loose. And his technique is so extensive and practised that he can get runs at the rate of 50 an hour, without once needing to venture romantically into the realms of the speculative or the empirical.” In simple terms it meant that Bradman had the ability to turn good balls into bad, and never failed to punish the bad ones. 

Lest we forget, there was still a match on. Rain permitted only 45 minutes’ play on the third day, and though England were forced to follow on despite a Hammond hundred, there was never a chance of a result thereon. That was maybe another reason why Bradman was a little bit less than satisfied with this innings. So far in this series he had scored a century, double century and triple century in consecutive Tests. 

(Author Indra Vikram Singh can be contacted on email singh_iv@hotmail.com).

Don’s Century 

Published in India by Sporting Links 

ISBN 978-81-901668-5-0 

Fully illustrated 

Paperback French Fold 

11 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches 

Weight 480 grams 

188 pages 

Available on Amazon at an attractive price: https://www.amazon.in/dp/8190166859 

Indra Vikram Singh's other books available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.in/s?k=Indra+Vikram+Singh&i=stripbooks&rh=p_6%3AA3HSV0N9AV7NOK&dc&qid=1602408830&rnid=1318474031&ref=sr_nr_p_6_1

Bradman’s finest innings, double century in the Lord’s Test of 1930. Excerpt from Indra Vikram Singh’s book ‘Don’s Century’

Bradman's finest innings. The Don considered his brilliant 254 at Lord’s in 1930 as his best, a flawless exhibition in the second Test that levelled the series 1-1.

There was much delight and nostalgia at Lord’s when two of first-class cricket’s biggest run-getters, Jack Hobbs and Frank Woolley, walked out together to open the batting for England in the absence of Herbert Sutcliffe, who had sustained an injury in the first Test. Thanks to Duleepsinhji’s superb 173 on first appearance against Australia, the hosts ran up a total of 425. Woodfull and Ponsford were sailing along, having raised 162.

Ponsford then seemed to lose focus, having just greeted King George V, who was visiting the ground. What followed was a Bradman gem. Woodfull was solid as ever but Bradman was in a different plane, smashing the English bowling in a stunning display over two-and-a-half hours that afternoon. The partnership realised 231 runs, and by close of play Australia were 404 for two, with Bradman on 155.

Kippax then featured in a stand of 192, and by the time Bradman made his first and last mistake, Australia had already taken a lead of 160. He had made a magnificent 254, having been at the crease for 341 minutes and stroked 25 boundaries in his 376-ball sojourn. Australia declared at 729 for six. The world now acknowledged the arrival of the run-getting phenomenon.

It was an innings that Bradman himself rated as his best. Every shot except one, he reminisced, went exactly where he intended, even the stroke that got him out. While making that last hit Bradman just overlooked that Percy Chapman, who took the catch, was a very tall man, and he also regarded it as one of the best catches he had ever seen.

Bradman is quoted in the Jack Bannister-compiled The Innings of My Life as saying, “It was my first innings in a Test at Lord’s, recognised as the home of cricket, and there was understandably a great deal of pressure on me. I have picked this innings because, though I played more valuable and important innings, I never played one so technically perfect. There was only one delivery I didn’t hit where I wanted (when on 191), and even that went along the ground to second slip.”

In an interview with Mike Popham of British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) television for the 200th anniversary of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) in 1987, Bradman reiterated that this was indeed the best innings he ever played in any class of cricket. He spoke about the atmosphere at Lord’s: “Like every young boy I was anxious to play at Lord’s, to have my first look at the ground. It has an atmosphere about it no other ground possesses. It’s not the best pitch, it’s not the best playing field, but it has this atmosphere. You can’t see it, you can’t touch it, but you can feel it. I think it’s got a great influence on the way you perform. You have to walk through the Long Room. You’re a part of history walking out there to bat, and I think that helps to inspire you to give a good performance.”

In the second innings, needing just 72 runs to win, he fell for 1, to another brilliant catch by Chapman, the bowler being Tate for the fourth time in Bradman’s young career. Australia won by seven wickets, the series pegged at 1-1.

“This was one of the great Test matches of history,” Bradman continued in the BBC interview, “it finished within four days. There were just over 1600 runs made off a rate of bowling which averaged roughly 130 overs a day.”

(Author Indra Vikram Singh can be contacted on email singh_iv@hotmail.com).

Don’s Century

Published in India by Sporting Links

ISBN 978-81-901668-5-0

Fully illustrated

Paperback French Fold 11 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches

Weight 480 grams

188 pages

Available on Amazon at an attractive price: https://www.amazon.in/dp/8190166859  

Indra Vikram Singh's other books available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.in/s?k=Indra+Vikram+Singh&i=stripbooks&rh=p_6%3AA3HSV0N9AV7NOK&dc&qid=1602408830&rnid=1318474031&ref=sr_nr_p_6_1